Behavioural Insights Projects

The COVID-19 pandemic, the war in Ukraine, and other social and global political crises and incidents have increased the need to understand the mental resilience, preparedness, agency and sense of community of Finns in various crises and disruptions. This memorandum presents information related to these topics collected via the Citizens’ Pulse survey and citizen interviews commissioned by the Prime Minister’s Office in March and April 2022.

Institution: Prime Minister's Office - Finland

Team: Finnish Behavioural Policy Unit

To reduce calf mortality rates, the Netherlands Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority (NVWA) developed various letters for distribution amongst three subgroups of dairy farmers. The impact measurement shows that calf mortality decreased in the overall target group, although the letters did not produce any measurable outcomes. Why this experiment was conducted: calf rearing necessitates a significant amount of care Failure to ensure appropriate care for animals in dairy farming operations…

Institution: Netherlands Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority

The study explores consumers’ understanding of the individual elements of the energy label and how the label design influences consumer choice. To this end, the study implemented two behavioural experiments to measure cognitive and behavioural responses to various label elements.

Institution: European Commission

Team: JRC Competence Centre on Behavioural Insights

In Indonesia, a replication of a Growth Mindset intervention had significant impacts on student academic performance – particularly in schools located in regions that could benefit the most. Student learning outcomes in Indonesia have remained lower than their regional neighbors and other middle-income countries, as suggested by the results of the Program for International Student Assessment – PISA. Aside from socioeconomic conditions and access to educational resources, student motivation…

Institution: World Bank

Team: eMBeD, Mind Behaviour and Development team

PROJECT SUMMARY Teachers in a summer school program for high school students provided brief, individualized, messages for parents with information about their child’s performance and behavior in school on a weekly basis. IMPACT Providing parents with individualized messages increased the probability a student earned credit for each class by 6.5 percentage points – a 41% reduction in failure rates.

Institution: Harvard Kennedy School

Team: Behavioural Insights Group

In line with the Government of Canada's National Adaptation Strategy, this project seeks to further understanding of Canadians’ awareness and adoption of measures intended to mitigate wildfire risk toward the end of supporting and empowering more widespread action. The study is a survey with an embedded randomized controlled trial component. The survey component of the study aims to address questions such as: 1. What are the barriers to more widespread adoption of wildland fire risk reduction…

Institution: Impact and Innovation Hub (IIU)- Impact Canada

Team: Impact and Innovation Unit (IIU)

The Charter of Rights and Responsibilities of Financial Consumers is an initiative designed to counteract consumers' optimism bias and the information asymmetry that typically favors banks over users. To address these behavioral and structural challenges, the initiative employs smart disclosure techniques, including the use of visual prominence and icons to guide users' attention when interacting with the document. This charter is mandated to be displayed physically at bank branches, digitally…

Institution: Superintendency of Bank of the Dominican Republic

Team: Administrative Modernization Agency (AMA)

Improving prevention in the area of mental health, destigmatizing the topic, improving awareness of the possibilities of help for different types of mental health problems, gradually breaking down the barriers that stand in the way of seeking professional help. Problem: students do not know how to deal with mental discomfort and the onset of mental health problems, including those caused by pandemics.

Institution: Ministry of Health of the Slovak Republic

Team: Behavioral and Experimental Economics Team (BEET)

PROJECT SUMMARY To increase uptake of flu vaccines and maintain a healthy workforce during the 2016-17 flu season, New York City’s Behavioral Design Team (NYC BDT) partnered with WorkWell NYC to design behaviorally informed emails to encourage New York City employees to visit a worksite flu clinic. One version of the redesigned email used the strategy of “enhanced active choice,” whereby employees were prompted to make a choice that had a clear right answer. IMPACT Behavioral emails more…

Institution: NYC Mayorship

Team: The NYC Behavioral Design Team - ideas42

Previous research by the Program of Applied Research on Climate Action and the Environment (PARCA) team has found that Canadians generally display poor understanding of the relative impacts of different pro-climate actions and have gaps in their understanding of climate change. Following up on these findings, a randomized controlled survey-experiment was conducted in December 2023 to test the impact of several behaviourally-informed interventions on climate literacy outcomes. Results suggested…

Institution: Impact and Innovation Hub (IIU)- Impact Canada

Team: Impact and Innovation Unit (IIU)